Teen who fears ‘honour killing’ will stay in care

A Christian teenage convert who says she will be killed if she returns home to her Muslim parents will stay in foster care while her case continues.

CBN News report

The 17-year-old fears she will be the victim of an ‘honour killing’, but her parents deny they want to harm her.

A judge ruled on Monday that Rifqa Bary, who converted from Islam, should stay in Florida with a foster family.

In August Miss Bary said she was the first Christian in her family, and said “imagine the honour in killing me”.

She claimed that her father “would kill me or send me back to Sri Lanka” where, she said, “they have asylums where they put people like me.”

Her father, Mohamed Bary, said: “She is my daughter and I love her.”

The judge also said the teenager cannot see the church couple who she stayed with when she first fled from Ohio.

The pastor of the church in Orlando, Florida, and his wife are the subject of a criminal complaint, according to the lawyer for Miss Bary’s parents.

Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an author and professor of psychology at the Richmond College of the City University of New York, said she believes Miss Bary would be in danger if she is sent back to her parents.

Dr Chesler told FOXNews.com: “Anyone who converts from Islam is considered an apostate, and apostasy is a capital crime”.

She continued: “If she is returned to her family, if she is lucky, they will isolate her, beat her, threaten her, and if she is not ‘persuaded’ to return to Islam, they will kill her. They have no choice.”

Dr Chesler said the tradition of such slayings is not fully understood by most Americans, including those in law enforcement.

Dr Chesler added: “She escaped from her family’s brutal tyranny and shamed her family further through public exposure”.